Rochester Hills, MI-based Energy Conversion Devices (ECD) recently won a $575,000 research and development contract from the US Display Consortium (USDC), San Jose, CA, to study thin stainless steel as the substrate upon which to convert electronic backplanes and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs).

The phase one development will focus on thin stainless steel—a highly flexible and conformable material, in contrast to commonly used glass materials—as a substrate that enables shaping of the finished display. Identifying suitable substrates is a critical step in moving away from flat displays to curved imaging products. Stainless steel will also provide a more rugged display substrate, more suitable for the military and other harsh environment applications, USDC says.

The purpose of the contract is to establish target substrate requirements and to identify and/or develop optimized materials and processes. ECD will then fabricate prototype substrates that will be tested by USDC members to determine suitability for display manufacturing of newer display technologies such as OLEDs.